The Sunrise (Mutul)
The Sunrise (ఎలెఖిని, Elk'in), was a violent purge movement in the Mutul taking place in 1955 and 1956. It was launched by the K'uhul Ajaw Jasaw Chan K'awiil IV against the then-dominant Orientalist faction, with the support of the Occidentalists and Traditionalists movements.
During the fifties, the Orientalists turned out to be an inconvenience for the Divine Monarchy. Internally, they had too many enemies leagued against them and internationally their policies failed to mend the divide between the Mutul and the Latium. Jasaw Chan K'awiil IV who had been crowned K'uhul Ajaw six years prior, was in disagreement with most of the Orientalists' policies and conflictual relationship existed between the Divine Lord and his Ministers who forced him to distance himself from politics and public events. Since then, the Mutulese propaganda has justified the Sunrise as a preventive strike against a "soft coup" the Orientalists were organizing against a Divine Monarchy that was no longer supportive of their policies. Evidences of such a plan, however, are dubious.
There was no known agreement between the Ilok'tab Dynasty, the Occidentalists, and the Oniyists as the latter two were more difuse ideology shared by various groups, secret societies, and movements than coherent political parties with clearly defined leaders or representatives. Nonetheless, a wish to overthrow the Orientalists was shared by all and it is on this boiling socio-political climate that the Ilok'tab gambled upon.
In 1955 the Yax K'awiil ("Prime Minister") Yu Kun Maax was arrested on charge of sedition and treason by the Divine Throne's services and his government was officially dissolved by Jasaw Chan K'awiil IV. This was the signal that the K'uhul Ajaw had stopped supporting and protecting the Orientalists. The very night, illegal manifestations in the Mutul' largest metropolis were not stopped by the police and turned into riots targeting known or imagined Orientalists. Such riots and display of popular justices would continue thourough the year, in parallel to official arrests and investigations made by the Justice System against Orientalists officials and personalities. In fact, extra-judicial killing my mobs, rioters, and officially unsanctioned death squads would be a staple of the Sunset.
Violences slowly stopped during the year 1956 after the formation of a new government following many tractations and negotiations between the Divine Throne and popular figureheads of both the Occidentalists and Traditionalists movements. This executive made of ministers from the two movements would last for six years during a period generally known as the Cohabitation in Mutulese history.
Because of the chaotic nature of the Sunset, the exact number of people killed during episodes of mob or state violence are unknown. The official estimate published by the Divine Throne in 1997 speak of around 100 deaths, 12 of which from capital punishment through human sacrifice. Unofficial estimates made by historians or journalists generally give numbers in the range of the thousand of causalities.
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